Читать книгу One-Eyed Baz - The Story of Barrington 'Zulu' Patterson, One of Britain's Deadliest Men - Barrington Patterson & Cass Pennant - Страница 10

Rupert: We liked The Specials

Todd: It was the Two Tone ska, the old blue beat music, and it was kind of like a switchover where white and black music met together.

Rupert: From the Midlands you had The Beat, The Selecter.

Todd: I think at the time we were quite heavily into that. But Barrington, because he was from the ghetto, it was only natural to put a beret on his head and a pair of short trousers on and be a Rasta. Barrington was the only Rasta I knew who ate pork – LOL! – and I think that’s what made us kind of know that he was from round there but he was more like us! It didn’t take him long to become like us, I can remember when Barrington joined the firm.

Rupert: It didn’t take him a long time at all.

Todd: I think this punk lad who disappeared, called ‘Luke’ (Robert Luca), was Barrington’s friend. I saw Luke’s mate Lamb the other week and he told me that Luke had died from a drug overdose. When we were rude boys in town it was because of Luke and Lamb that we could interact with the punks and the skinheads.

Todd: I know that Luke was very influential with the punks; he was one of the main punk lads. I used to go down there all the time, because at the time you had all the rude girls and the half-skinhead girls, but when you wanted to interact with the punk girls, who you never saw much of because they were with the skinheads, you could go and talk with Luke who was mates with them all. There was one black guy who was a skinhead; when the skinheads and the punks and rude boys started to mingle then the blacks came in.

Rupert: If the Birmingham skinheads would fight with anybody they’d fight with us, and we’d fight the mods.

Todd: It was massive! Down by the library we used to have running battles; there were probably about 300 on each side and the rockers were getting it too. I can remember times when we all used to go down there: me, Rupert, Barrington and a few more of them; there was a guy called Terry, who used to think he was ‘the face’ of the mods, and he used to come up and try to mix with us and find out what we were doing but, depending on what mood we were in, he’d probably end up getting a slap! Nine times out of 10 it would be Barrington who gave him a slap.

Rupert: He was older than us, he was twice our age.

Todd: It was a really crazy time! I can remember once I took his Parka and we all went down to Bingley Hall. All the rude boys stayed hidden and I walked up towards the mods, dressed in his Parka, saying, ‘The rude boys are coming!’ As soon as the mods got near, the rude boys jumped out and we had a running battle with the mods.

Rupert: That was just up the road from the police station. They used to have all the Vespas and Lambrettas parked there and we used to kick their bikes over!

On a Saturday you used to get loads of lads coming into the town, so we thought it was a good way to earn a bit of poke. We used to tax them; we’d take them to one side and take their money off them – if they had nice clothes on, we’d take them too. Then we’d give them a little slap and send them on their way.

The main place we’d hang out would be either by the fountain or the ramp, which was where everyone headed from the train station. We’d have a group of around 20 rude boys and rude girls and there were other gangs scattered around who hung out near the fountain, e.g. the Jazz Funkers (aka the Convicts), the Rat Pack, who hung out in the Night Rider pub, and also the Apex. Sometimes fights could break out between us, but, if outsiders came into town, the Townies and the other gangs formed alliances. This is how the Zulus started to form, from different gangs joining forces against rival football firms coming into our city.

I was living in Handsworth at the time but I was in town every day. I’d finish at school, get home, change and head straight into town, then I’d catch the last bus home at about 11.30–12. We had to earn money, so it was in town that I had my little earners.

On Saturday, in came all the football fans who we’d started taxing. Then, all of a sudden, you started getting these skinheads coming into town. We’d wait for ’em to walk through and we’d hammer ’em – bang ’em, bang ’em, bang ’em! But there was this black guy who used to hang around with them. He was a local skinhead and I used to think, Fucking coconut, man!